mokinokaro:After using Win8 for about a month (came with new, non-touchscreen laptop)

+charms bar is actually pretty useful as the bar itself lays things out in a mostly logical manner. It's a good shortcut menu.+boot times and general performance are quite better than even 7+no issues gaming (memory leaks seem to be cleaned up much better if I have to force-kill a program)+program switching seems to be quicker, but that might be from the better machine

-Metro is still somewhat annoying but the most I ever do with it is snap messenger or the music player into a sidebar (when I'm not using iTunes)-no start button on desktop has confused coworkers/friends using my machine (honestly, there should be an option to at least add a "metro" button there)

Basically it's an okay upgrade if you're on XP or Vista, but if you have Win7 it's not really necessary at all. It does have some UI issues that I hope Microsoft is smart enough to work on with SP1.

In general, I agree with your assessment other than I hate the charms bar because not all the programs use it the same way or even consistently for preferences/settings. Also, my boot time is crazy fast on my laptop, which I consider a big win especially for laptop users.

xria:I think the idea is to try and force all new apps to be Modern UI so the same app works on Windows, Tablet, Mobile without having to build different versions of an app for each one, whereas if they made it a feature people would mostly keep making desktop apps, which would mean the tablet/mobile app "ecosystem" wouldn't build as fast.

This is small part of the picture, but to my mind not the complete picture. The real reason is that they see how much money apple is making in their walled garden, and want a piece of the action - that is, getting a cut of every app sold for the platform. So, while having a common platform across devices could be a nice side benefit, I highly doubt it is the real reason for forcing the "Modern UI" on everybody. The real reason would thus be the walled garden. Why else would they hamstring the old UI that everybody is comfortable and happy with? They think their market position is strong enough to force everybody into a new paradigm to their own benefit.

/ installed Win8 on my desktop in 10/2012.// took me about 15-20 minutes to figure it out./// doesn't bother or hinder me at all.//// I get the whole one-os-for-all-form-factors thing.// M$ is HORRIBLE at marketing, and has too bad a rep to not work on that.

/ installed Win8 on my desktop in 10/2012.// took me about 15-20 minutes to figure it out./// doesn't bother or hinder me at all.//// I get the whole one-os-for-all-form-factors thing.// M$ is HORRIBLE at marketing, and has too bad a rep to not work on that.

Trayal:xria: I think the idea is to try and force all new apps to be Modern UI so the same app works on Windows, Tablet, Mobile without having to build different versions of an app for each one, whereas if they made it a feature people would mostly keep making desktop apps, which would mean the tablet/mobile app "ecosystem" wouldn't build as fast.

This is small part of the picture, but to my mind not the complete picture. The real reason is that they see how much money apple is making in their walled garden, and want a piece of the action - that is, getting a cut of every app sold for the platform. So, while having a common platform across devices could be a nice side benefit, I highly doubt it is the real reason for forcing the "Modern UI" on everybody. The real reason would thus be the walled garden. Why else would they hamstring the old UI that everybody is comfortable and happy with? They think their market position is strong enough to force everybody into a new paradigm to their own benefit.

I suppose that makes sense but "walled garden" doesn't really apply to the desktop, on either Windows or OS X.

syrynxx:Is this a bad time to mention that you can upgrade to Win8 Pro from any version of XP, Vista, or 7 for only $39.99 for the next week?

upgrade-to-windows-8-pro-for-39-99More direct link to $40 upgrade

Before you laugh, the price jumps to $199 February 1st. That's right! If you don't like it at $40, you'll don't like it more at $200! Historically, $40 for a full legal copy of Windows (x) Professional is a steal. I don't like the Metro UI either, but install one of the Start Menu fixes (I use Stardock Start8 for $5) and you'll almost never deal with Metro.

or just not install it and save myself 40 bucks + still have an exceptionally functional OS in 7..

I mean, c'mon. I'm not the brightest guy here by a long shot and even I figured Metro out and adapted to it.

You have to remember though that fark had a near apocalyptic meltdown over the 'smart' and 'Funny' buttons and every other site redesign, no matter how minor, since the beginning of fark. The majority of us are repulsed by the mere thought of a stranger clipping their fingernails in their cubical. The smell of microwaved food of any nationality is sure to offend some portion of farkers if they happen to be working in the same building. These people do no handle adversity very well.

And sometimes change, just for the sake of change, is not a good thing.

They had to find a way to put their main product on big screens, desktops, laptops, and tablets. It wasn't just for the sake of change. Microsoft's bread and butter (desktop computers) is shrinking. They're expanding their product to new markets... if they don't, they lose money. Me? After trying it on all of them... it's pretty good. Even better... it forced OEMs to be inventive with their designs for the first time in 20 years.

FTFA:Microsoft did say that the figure of 60 million could be attributed to upgrades and sales to manufacturers - so not sales of actual PCs to the end user.

I suspect the breakdown is something like this:00.1% - people actually buying Windows 8 by itself, to upgrade from something else.24.9% - people buying new machines and having no choice but Windows 8.75.0% - "sold" to distributors/retailers, so now it's their problem, not ours.

It was $40 and I had XP.

I thought about getting it for my wife's XP machine, but I like being married to her.

I went from XP to 8 with the upgrade offer and love it, with Classic Shell. It's far faster, smother and has lots of new features like automatic backup.

theurge14:Yesterday I was handed an HP laptop and was asked to "fix it".

Turned out to the be the first Windows 8 experience I've had.

As a Mac guy I get the sense of the idea Microsoft has with this and I like what they think they want to do, but the execution of how to get there... ugh.

It took me about 10 seconds to find Desktop, it took me another 10 seconds to discover that they've removed Control Panel and everything else useful from Desktop. 5 minutes later I found out how to turn on the "Administration Tiles" on the main Metro screen

The scrolling is phone-like, the icons are terrible, the menus are too sparse, it's just too disjointed.

I went to uninstall Norton so I could turn Windows Defender on (the renamed MSE), but I couldn't find Windows Defender anywhere. I found the Search Charm, typed in Windows Defender, first result came up, clicked it, error message telling me that something else was already the default antivirus and I needed to go disable that first in the Security Center. Of course Windows didn't offer to link me to the Security Center, I had to spend another 5 minutes figuring out how to dig that up.

It feels like everything I really need is intentionally buried behind 5 layers of searching crap, while the crap I don't need has gigantic animated tiles for quick access. It's like running MS-DOS and not being able to type "dir".

Why are they paying you to fix people's computers? You clearly don't know shiat.

wedun:theurge14: Yesterday I was handed an HP laptop and was asked to "fix it".

Turned out to the be the first Windows 8 experience I've had.

As a Mac guy I get the sense of the idea Microsoft has with this and I like what they think they want to do, but the execution of how to get there... ugh.

It took me about 10 seconds to find Desktop, it took me another 10 seconds to discover that they've removed Control Panel and everything else useful from Desktop. 5 minutes later I found out how to turn on the "Administration Tiles" on the main Metro screen

The scrolling is phone-like, the icons are terrible, the menus are too sparse, it's just too disjointed.

I went to uninstall Norton so I could turn Windows Defender on (the renamed MSE), but I couldn't find Windows Defender anywhere. I found the Search Charm, typed in Windows Defender, first result came up, clicked it, error message telling me that something else was already the default antivirus and I needed to go disable that first in the Security Center. Of course Windows didn't offer to link me to the Security Center, I had to spend another 5 minutes figuring out how to dig that up.

It feels like everything I really need is intentionally buried behind 5 layers of searching crap, while the crap I don't need has gigantic animated tiles for quick access. It's like running MS-DOS and not being able to type "dir".

Why are they paying you to fix people's computers? You clearly don't know shiat.

BullBearMS:RDixon: I wonder how many buyers of new PCs, blindsided by Windows 8 and having to relearn simple tasks, have returned the PCs for replacement with Windows 7 machines.

One of the vendors of high end gaming rigs at CES said that they offer their gaming rigs with either Windows 7 or 8 and that half of those who pick Windows 8 want to return it and get Windows 7.

People complained when Windows 95 came out.People complained when Windows NT came out.People complained when Windows 2000 came out.People complained when Windows XP came out.People complained when Windows 7 came out.

So see, even if they release truly good OSs, people still complain. I can't believe the number of goofs that still run XP.

wedun:theurge14: Yesterday I was handed an HP laptop and was asked to "fix it".

Turned out to the be the first Windows 8 experience I've had.

As a Mac guy I get the sense of the idea Microsoft has with this and I like what they think they want to do, but the execution of how to get there... ugh.

It took me about 10 seconds to find Desktop, it took me another 10 seconds to discover that they've removed Control Panel and everything else useful from Desktop. 5 minutes later I found out how to turn on the "Administration Tiles" on the main Metro screen

The scrolling is phone-like, the icons are terrible, the menus are too sparse, it's just too disjointed.

I went to uninstall Norton so I could turn Windows Defender on (the renamed MSE), but I couldn't find Windows Defender anywhere. I found the Search Charm, typed in Windows Defender, first result came up, clicked it, error message telling me that something else was already the default antivirus and I needed to go disable that first in the Security Center. Of course Windows didn't offer to link me to the Security Center, I had to spend another 5 minutes figuring out how to dig that up.

It feels like everything I really need is intentionally buried behind 5 layers of searching crap, while the crap I don't need has gigantic animated tiles for quick access. It's like running MS-DOS and not being able to type "dir".

Why are they paying you to fix people's computers? You clearly don't know shiat.

theurge14 knows more than these so called powerusers at the top of this thread./I have a friend who knows shiat about computers, I built him a W8 HTPC and told him jack shiat how to use it , two weeks later he got a another copy for his laptop//Wait I did tell him how to get WMC and use a HDMI cord instead of VGA

LasersHurt:Hardware manufacturers DID come late to the game. They're pushing a TON of new convertibles and tablets this year at CES, but so long after the Win8 launch I can see where MS is peeved. Nothing they can really do about it, mind you. Deal with it.

If Microsoft has anyone to blame it's itself when they gave everyone else the middle finger and brought out the surface tablet, I don't think hardware manufacturers were in that much of a hurry to help out a company that is now their prime rival.

As for Windows 8, it's biggest problem is that it is that the Metro UI is counterproductive, it's much easier now to use the keyboard (Press start, type the first few letters of the program you want, press enter) to get to your programs instead of using the touchscreen or the mouse, If they made the metro ui an option instead of the standard, and didn't tick off the hardware folks, Microsoft probably wouldn't be in this jam.

Microsoft basically considers desktop applications to be obsolete, and considers Metro applications as the way to make applications going forward. The problem is that the Metro API is extremely limited. You can't make many of the applications people like using with the restrictions of the Metro interface.

Windows 7 was an unreserved success. No-one complained about Windows 7. It was faster than Vista, the UI was improved and it added a bit to stability, too.

I know 3 people running Windows8 and each of them is using Start8. They are getting the stability and speed of Windows 8, but without the crappy UI. One is a well-known developer/trainer and she tried using Metro for a couple of weeks and gave up, had to get Start8. The UI might make sense on a tablet, but it doesn't on a PC.

mikemil828:LasersHurt: Hardware manufacturers DID come late to the game. They're pushing a TON of new convertibles and tablets this year at CES, but so long after the Win8 launch I can see where MS is peeved. Nothing they can really do about it, mind you. Deal with it.

If Microsoft has anyone to blame it's itself when they gave everyone else the middle finger and brought out the surface tablet, I don't think hardware manufacturers were in that much of a hurry to help out a company that is now their prime rival.

As for Windows 8, it's biggest problem is that it is that the Metro UI is counterproductive, it's much easier now to use the keyboard (Press start, type the first few letters of the program you want, press enter) to get to your programs instead of using the touchscreen or the mouse, If they made the metro ui an option instead of the standard, and didn't tick off the hardware folks, Microsoft probably wouldn't be in this jam.

I think they're trying to pull a Google and put out a really good reference model at a good price in order to push manufacturers to compete with that. The problem came in the fact that this broke a long standing tradition of how this was handled between manufacturers and Microsoft. (Another problem may be how long it took them to get around to actually releasing Surface devices)

Still, I dunno how valuable "butthurt" is as a business model, and it seems like manufacturers are having to get it in gear anyway.

I can't tell if you're trolling, astroturfing or just a very, very goofy bastard...

Let's see - the link says revenue of Windows grew by 11%. Considering they're selling the OS at a massively reduced price of either $15 or $40 - it's impressive they grew revenue while selling at a massive discount. If revenue remained flat, that would mean there was no major bump in sales and things were going as they were the quarter before. If there was a drop, then it would show that no one wants to upgrade to Windows 8 - like some farkers like to claim. Unless the quarter saw a huge increase in demand for Windows 7, it's pretty solid evidence that Windows 8 is selling.

Never mind MS reiterating that they've already sold over 60 million licenses in a about 3 months (the same rate Windows 7 sold at launch), and that they're deferring over a billion dollars in Windows 8 upgrade revenues for the next quarter.

I'd say that's plenty of evidence things are going just fine for Win 8. Their record revenues, lead by the Windows division certainly show that.

Electrify:When Windows 95 came out, was there this much biatching about the change from the Program Manager to the Start Menu? The internet wasn't as developed back then, so I don't remember.

No. There was however a substantial amount of biatching on Fidonet. Not because of the move from ProgMan to Start... but because Win95a was a horribly unstable POS that'd eat it's own file system drivers at the drop of a hat and on more than one occasion would delete io.sys, rendering the C drive unbootable.

Anyone remember Win95 as being 'good' is talking about OSR2 (aka Win95b), not the A version.

My cousin bought my decidedly non-tech-savvy aunt a Windows 8 laptop for Christmas. I spent a few minutes toying with it before setting it aside, since I reckoned my aunt wouldn't be terribly thrilled if I threw the laptop across the room (and besides that, I didn't want to upset the cats). Going to take the advice of several people here and install Classic Shell so that she's capable of actually using it.

Random aside: where's linux_yes when you need him/her/it? It's been a while since I've had consistent Internets but I swear I saw him/her/it post recently, so I doubt the mods dropped the banhammer...

I cite your own post stating that at the exact same time in Win7's release it'd sold the exact same number of licenses as proof you are counting an OEM (i.e. Dell) bulk purchase.

Exactly how many retail, boxed copies of Win8 have sold. And your reticence to ever mention that in the threads you've astroturfed also confirms your paid by Microsoft, either directly or via a proxy PR firm.

I can't even be bothered dancing with you, you suck at your job. I hope you get fired.

drjekel_mrhyde:theurge14 knows more than these so called powerusers at the top of this thread.

perhaps if he knew what he was doing he could have googled "windows defender windows8" and/or used the windows+c or windows+x key maybe even the windows+r key. all the old stuff is there it's just hidden under a veneer of end user friendly things.

wedun:all the old stuff is there it's just hidden under a veneer of end user friendly things.

And I can completely disable all of that end user friendly things yes? Metro, tiles, charms, all the other bollocks correct? Click a few buttons, tick a few boxes and it's all very very dead never to reappear unless I turn them on?

Call me when it retails in the bargain bin for £1 and those options are there. Not before.

Vaneshi:wedun: all the old stuff is there it's just hidden under a veneer of end user friendly things.

And I can completely disable all of that end user friendly things yes? Metro, tiles, charms, all the other bollocks correct? Click a few buttons, tick a few boxes and it's all very very dead never to reappear unless I turn them on?

Call me when it retails in the bargain bin for £1 and those options are there. Not before.

/Don't bother, we both know you can't turn that stuff off.

you sound worse than those people who whined about the start button when windows 95 came out.

wedun:you sound worse than those people who whined about the start button when windows 95 came out.

You know what was still there as an option in Windows XP?

The Windows 3.1 Program Manager.

Of course, that was back when Microsoft cared more about allowing their customers to leverage their training dollars to get their work done than they cared about leveraging the Windows brand to try to break into the tablet market.

I cite your own post stating that at the exact same time in Win7's release it'd sold the exact same number of licenses as proof you are counting an OEM (i.e. Dell) bulk purchase.

Exactly how many retail, boxed copies of Win8 have sold. And your reticence to ever mention that in the threads you've astroturfed also confirms your paid by Microsoft, either directly or via a proxy PR firm.

I can't even be bothered dancing with you, you suck at your job. I hope you get fired.

Ha, there's a reason why I have you favorited as "paranoid." If you'd like, you can always privately message me and I can give you the main line into my office's front desk. You'll find out very quickly that I work in marketing and IT for an architecture firm (which is also why I'm heavily into renewable energy). Or simply, you can read my bio at a 3rd party non-profit where I'm on the board as vice-president. Unless the regional Emmy Awards are part of the great MS conspiracy, you can put your astroturfing paranoia to rest.

I honestly don't think anyone knows how many boxed copies of Win 8 have been sold - unless MS has their fingers in every mom and pop shop, best buy, newegg, amazon, etc. sales receipts. All they would know is how many units they've shipped to retailers and OEM box builders - and then they would know how many activations they've had. I do wish they'd share activation statistics.

If you think they're padding the books by shipping millions of dusty copies of Windows 8 to OEM's and retailers, it should come out in next quarter's earnings and reports. But the fact is that there's over a billion licensed copies of Windows out there. Roughly 20 million new desktops and laptops are sold every month. Considering Apple sells a hair over a million computers a month, 19 out of 20 million new computers have Windows on them. They've been selling at that monthly rate for roughly a decade. I don't see any reason, or any indications that they're slowing down in sales by more than a few percentage points.And ask yourself this question. If revenues at the Windows division is up - and it doesn't look like Windows 7 is flying off the shelves - what are they selling to make those billions?

SuperT:oh, and using the 'metro' interface in server 2012. that was just pure awesome, because as awesome as a tablet interface is on a regular desktop, having it in a server UI was even more awesome.

Having Metro on a Server actually makes sense in an odd way. Since servers are generally run headless, the touch interface would make life much easier for an admin who is using Remote Desktop to access the server using a tablet. Not sure how often that would happen, but it is a use case where the tiles make sense.

I just got back from buying a new computer. I set it up, turned it on, went through a quick setup and was hit square in the face with a whole bag of WTF. I was concerned about windows 8 because of all the internet buzz, but there were only two computers available with windows 7 and they were both pricey gaming boxes. So I got a new Asus that's actually the fastest computer I've ever owned and I can't figure out how to do anything because of the shiatty interface. Thanks a lot, Microsoft.The new 24" LED monitor is awesome though!

Microsoft had it right with Windows XP Professional. Then they broke it with Vista. Fixed some of what they broke with Windows 7. And then decided to sh*t all over it with Windows 8.

Dear Microsoft: I don't want my computer to look or work like a smartphone. Stop pandering and build a serious operating system that actually works and doesn't require the user to go hunting all over the place for all the options you've decided to hide. You had the interface right at XP. You could have just improved on it, but -- no -- you had to screw it up. By Windows 8, the interface looks more like a toy, and in some strange way it takes me back to Microsoft Bob™.

redsquid:I just got back from buying a new computer. I set it up, turned it on, went through a quick setup and was hit square in the face with a whole bag of WTF. I was concerned about windows 8 because of all the internet buzz, but there were only two computers available with windows 7 and they were both pricey gaming boxes. So I got a new Asus that's actually the fastest computer I've ever owned and I can't figure out how to do anything because of the shiatty interface. Thanks a lot, Microsoft.The new 24" LED monitor is awesome though!

Lower left corner takes you to the start screen. You can right click there for a handy menu. Upper left corner opens a menu letting you switch between currently running apps with the top corner itself going to the most recent. It's like a taskbar for apps. Assuming you don't have a tablet you'll probably ignore that. Right corners open the charms bar which has the search, share, settings, etc buttons. What those buttons do depend on where you are, that's where you'll find settings for and be able to search for things in the specific app you're using, or more generally if you're in the desktop or start screen.

when you open the start screen you can just start typing and it'll bring up search. If you hit enter it'll run it's best guess. It's the same combination run/search bar from 7 only it works a bit better. It splits the results into apps, settings, and files. So if you type "Windows Update" and wonder why you don't get any results, it's because it defaults to showing apps.

You can use the scroll wheel to pan the start screen, through ideally you wouldn't have so much stuff pinned that you'd need to. You should probably immediately unpin half the crap that Microsoft puts there (right click the tile, select unpin from the bottom of the screen). If you right click somewhere on the start screen that isn't a tile you'll get an "all apps" option that'll show you everything in the old start menu structure - though if you need to do that, searching is probably easier. Right click on whatever you actually want and pin it to the start menu or taskbar as appropriate. You can move tiles to different tile groups by dragging them, and if you click the little box in the lower right, it'll zoom out and you can right click your tile groups to name them.

Other than that, there really isn't a whole lot to figure out. The interface isn't all that terribly shiatty really - they just don't bother to tell you anything about how to use it.

seanpg71:redsquid: I just got back from buying a new computer. I set it up, turned it on, went through a quick setup and was hit square in the face with a whole bag of WTF. I was concerned about windows 8 because of all the internet buzz, but there were only two computers available with windows 7 and they were both pricey gaming boxes. So I got a new Asus that's actually the fastest computer I've ever owned and I can't figure out how to do anything because of the shiatty interface. Thanks a lot, Microsoft.The new 24" LED monitor is awesome though!

Lower left corner takes you to the start screen. You can right click there for a handy menu. Upper left corner opens a menu letting you switch between currently running apps with the top corner itself going to the most recent. It's like a taskbar for apps. Assuming you don't have a tablet you'll probably ignore that. Right corners open the charms bar which has the search, share, settings, etc buttons. What those buttons do depend on where you are, that's where you'll find settings for and be able to search for things in the specific app you're using, or more generally if you're in the desktop or start screen.

when you open the start screen you can just start typing and it'll bring up search. If you hit enter it'll run it's best guess. It's the same combination run/search bar from 7 only it works a bit better. It splits the results into apps, settings, and files. So if you type "Windows Update" and wonder why you don't get any results, it's because it defaults to showing apps.

You can use the scroll wheel to pan the start screen, through ideally you wouldn't have so much stuff pinned that you'd need to. You should probably immediately unpin half the crap that Microsoft puts there (right click the tile, select unpin from the bottom of the screen). If you right click somewhere on the start screen that isn't a tile you'll get an "all apps" option that'll show you everything in the old start menu structure - though if yo ...

Download Classic Shell for free. Brings back the Start button and menu.

Mad_Radhu:SuperT: oh, and using the 'metro' interface in server 2012. that was just pure awesome, because as awesome as a tablet interface is on a regular desktop, having it in a server UI was even more awesome.

Having Metro on a Server actually makes sense in an odd way. Since servers are generally run headless, the touch interface would make life much easier for an admin who is using Remote Desktop to access the server using a tablet. Not sure how often that would happen, but it is a use case where the tiles make sense.

As an SA since way back when, I can never think of a time or place that this would happen in real life. Interesting in theory though.

No. There was however a substantial amount of biatching on Fidonet. Not because of the move from ProgMan to Start... but because Win95a was a horribly unstable POS that'd eat it's own file system drivers at the drop of a hat and on more than one occasion would delete io.sys, rendering the C drive unbootable.

Anyone remember Win95 as being 'good' is talking about OSR2 (aka Win95b), not the A version.

The same thing actually happened with both Win98 (wasn't great until Second Edition came out) and XP (Service Pack 1 fixed a lot of glaring issues.) The first release of a Windows OS is usually a buggy mess, with 7 (which was basically an SE for Vista in a lot of ways) and Win 8 (outside of Metro) as the exceptions.

I cite your own post stating that at the exact same time in Win7's release it'd sold the exact same number of licenses as proof you are counting an OEM (i.e. Dell) bulk purchase.

Exactly how many retail, boxed copies of Win8 have sold. And your reticence to ever mention that in the threads you've astroturfed also confirms your paid by Microsoft, either directly or via a proxy PR firm.

I can't even be bothered dancing with you, you suck at your job. I hope you get fired.

Ha, there's a reason why I have you favorited as "paranoid." If you'd like, you can always privately message me and I can give you the main line into my office's front desk. You'll find out very quickly that I work in marketing and IT for an architecture firm (which is also why I'm heavily into renewable energy). Or simply, you can read my bio at a 3rd party non-profit where I'm on the board as vice-president. Unless the regional Emmy Awards are part of the great MS conspiracy, you can put your astroturfing paranoia to rest.

I honestly don't think anyone knows how many boxed copies of Win 8 have been sold - unless MS has their fingers in every mom and pop shop, best buy, newegg, amazon, etc. sales receipts. All they would know is how many units they've shipped to retailers and OEM box builders - and then they would know how many activations they've had. I do wish they'd share activation statistics.

If you think they're padding the books by shipping millions of dusty copies of Windows 8 to OEM's and retailers, it should come out in next quarter's earnings and reports. But the fact is that there's over a billion licensed copies of Windows out there. Roughly 20 million new desktops and laptops are sold every month. Considering Apple sells a hair over a million computers a month, 19 out of 20 million new computers have Windows on them. They've been selling at that monthly rat ...

Don't bother with him. He doesn't understand that an OEM sale is actually money that ends up in MS's pocket. For some reason he thinks that only end consumers who purchase it count as "real money".